Sunday, 12 June 2016

Wired

If
you ever wondered what an activist is or does, then read Left Field and you could be forgiven for thinking that Wilson was wired
from a very early age for adventure and rebellion, from his mothers
exacerbated remarks to the cobbler in Bromley, ’I don’t know what
he gets up to’ as she handed over his battered Clark’s shoes, to
his impulsive decision to set sail for Argentina when he was 16 years
old. But along the way, this impulse towards action was leavened and
combined into a burning commitment to the underdog across a host of
groups and contexts at both a national and international level.

'Left Field' takes us through his rejection of the hypocrisy and elitism of
the public school system, to which he was subjected, to his CND
involvement, the Vietnam conflict, anti-apartheid protests, the
miners strike and importantly the Bosnian war, which was a major and
lengthy engagement for him through the role he played as founder and
director of both the charity, War Child, and the Pavarotti Music
Centre in Mostar. Alongside these political engagements, the creative
and adventurous side of his life finds expression in his play writing
and the sometimes dodgy deals in the art world of the newly emerging
eastern European nations. This latter is thriller stuff!

Interlaced
with humour, anecdotes and with a sense of irony, even in the most
destructive of situations, the book is intelligently and engagingly
written and gives a vivid and honest, blow by blow account of an
exceptional life at both a personal and a political level. The many
digressions from the political to the personal, from the moving last
days of his fathers life, his home in Bromley, the many domestic
challenges he faced and the extraordinary achievements of the
Pavarotti Music Centre in a theatre of war, all work to weave
together a mosaic of a life lived to the full.

What
is refreshing about this book is the absence of ideological
preaching. It is just Wilson, sharing his life experience but with a
host of rather depressing implications for the reader to draw,
significantly, how power elites at all levels, even charities, work
to maintain the status quo, how ethnicity is used to divide and rule
and the necessity for activists to stay close to the grass roots.
It’s an absorbing read.